Coachella 2012: Pulp, Madness lead Brit Invasion

Enough talk about the rain that never really came. Here's what really happened at the first day of the first weekend of Coachella 2012: Anglophilia took on Americana, and both came out winners.

Each strain had a number of reps on display throughout the chilliest day in Coldchella history, culminating in back-to-back main-stage performances that are feathers in the caps of their respective headliners.

For the Americans it was a powerful, arena-level set from blues-rock duo the Black Keys – immensely better than last year's rather anemic appearance – preceded by a heartier helping of Bonnaroo-ready bands than Coachella typically enlists: Mojave turns from M. Ward (I'll see him next weekend, maybe) and Dawes (very robust playing to virtually no one) plus a great set from Girls (if San Francisco psychedelia can be allowed as a corollary to Americana), further experiments in prog-rock and Americanized world-beat from Yuck and Givers (respectively), and mostly swell early-afternoon spots from the Sheepdogs and Honeyhoney.

The Brits and those who wish they were Londoners, however, enjoyed a lineup like most U.K. festivals would be ecstatic to host. In ascending order: a thoroughly rousing set from James to remind why their place in the Britpop pantheon is secure; a full-throttled and spot-on performance from Arctic Monkeys; a terrific, superbly executed batch of ska-pop classics from Madness; and the magnificent return of Pulp, a year later than expected … but the stuff of legend is worth the wait. (You could also tack on an ambient late-night gig from the Horrors, just to be accurate.)

I already praised James in an earlier post, and later Saturday morning David Hall will compare and contrast the Monkeys, both with themselves and with the thickfreakness that followed from the Keys. Madness were predictably solid: They looked their same dapper English selves in sleek suits and sunglasses (Suggs added a fedora), and they sounded more or less the same as they did here in 2008, and again several years before that on their first reunion trip back to America.

But relative familiarity amid such length gaps in time hardly detracted from what was another wonderful run through the group's catalog, with the response for lesser-known (over here) bits like “Baggy Trousers” and “Night Boat to Cairo” and a fitting take on “The Sun and the Rain” garnering just as tickled a response from the (sometimes aggressive) crowd as actual stateside breakthroughs like “Our House” and “On the Wings of a Dove.” So much fun, it makes me not want to skip much of Squeeze on Saturday just to watch 30,000 girls cry along to Jeff Mangum.

Pulp, on the other hand, was just marvelous, even a revelation, in large part because we've had so few opportunities to see the brilliant wit Jarvis Cocker and the rest of the underrated quintet in action. In nearly 30 years of record-making they've rarely played this side of the pond, even in their fleetingly brief mid-'90s heyday, brought on by the inspired and scathingly funny anthem “Common People.”

Naturally that piece got a huge response from the crowd, which swelled from tightly packed throngs of ardent devotees to all manner of lookie-loos once Pulp added in some laser play for “The Fear” (not that it even held a flickering flashlight to Swedish House Mafia's mind-boggling laser array at the end of the night). The slow audience build-up happened with Madness as well, by the way; at first it looked like it might be an embarrassingly low turnout a la Paul Weller's unfortunate set a few years ago, though after a half-dozen staples with skank appeal, they had plenty of icy-cold people hoppin' and boppin'.

What was heartening about Pulp's performance, though, was how many people seemed steeped in gems from 1995's seminal effort Different Class -- songs like "Disco 2000" and "Sorted for E's & Wizz" -- and, to only a slightly lesser extent, the darker yet no less compelling 1997 opus This Is Hardcore, whose deceptively seductive title track, for instance, churned to a heady climax.

“There's a rumor goin' 'round that the reason it was gray and miserable earlier is because two Sheffield bands were on,” Cocker joked, referring to his own group and Arctic Monkeys. As Dennis Lyxzen of the revived beyond-hardcore band Refused also noted – “this is Swedish summer at its best,” he said of the weather – Cocker was keenly aware how ill-prepared much of this Coachella crowd came for the fest. “You should consider yourselves lucky,” he told the crowd, “consider yourselves bloody lucky.”

Indeed, it's a wonder tens of thousands of young people wearing next to nothing in 45-degree chill weren't rushed to the ER with mild hypothermia. (Do enough drugs in the Sahara tent and you can survive another ice age.) There was also a momentary scare just before Jimmy Cliff came on, when hung speakers started swaying so much that the photo pit had to be temporarily evacuated. (Which begs the question: What would Goldenvoice ever do if conditions became so severe that they had to call the festival for the night, lest they set themselves up for another crashing disaster like we've seen too often recently in the U.S. and abroad.

But I digress … Pulp: just staggeringly smart stuff. Cocker, in his coat and tie, mussed-up hair and thick banker's frames, is among the most oddly charismatic fellows to ever grace the main stage; you've no idea how many ladies swooned over his charming asides between songs. Yet his stirring vocals and dramatically conveyed lyrics about class struggle, sexual politics, the side effects of narcotics and other frank matters were equally matched by rich playing from the rest of Pulp: Mark Webber slicing through the snark on guitar, Candida Doyle adding deft keyboard and organ flourishes, the rhythm section of Steve Mackey (bass) and Nick Banks (drums) anchoring mightily.

Honestly, they had no right sounding so first-rate after so long away. But their timing is impeccable: After years of being cast aside by Yanks into indie-rock, foolishly dismissed as a Britpop also-ran, Pulp's influence is more resonant and prevalent in today's fringier fare than either Blur's or Oasis' estimable work. If you consider the former some sort of neo-Kinks for a once-swingin' London and the latter as the closest thing to a modern-era Lennon/McCartney phenomenon in the U.K. as there's been, then consider Pulp to be Bowie playing out a lengthy end-game. And since Bowie himself doesn't seem very likely to ever resume touring – or play Coachella – we should be grateful for a most original next best thing.

Maybe we can send Goldenvoice a box of Ben Sherman shirts, too, for planning out the British Invasion of Coachella 2012 Part II, as Saturday's English artists are just as plentiful: the Vaccines, the Big Pink, Kaiser Chiefs, Buzzcocks, Laura Marling, Noel Gallagher's High Flying Birds, Squeeze, Kasabian, Radiohead.

The only contingency that almost rivals such Brit dominance this weekend comes from Sweden, including (still to come) Miike Snow, First Aid Kit and the Hives and (earlier today) Swedish House Mafia and a tremendous performance from advanced hardcore progenitor Refused, so smack-you-hard intense yet funky and subversive, that they left my mouth agape.

But I'll have more to say about that, along with Day 1 wrap-up posts from the rest of the crew, a little later on Saturday. I've got to shut my eyes now.

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